Research note: Rand's research on terrorism

Repeatedly, during the last few years, small groups of extremists have demonstrated that by using terrorist tactics they can achieve disproportionate effects. They attract worldwide attention to themselves and their causes; they arouse worldwide alarm, and can create international incidents that national governments are compelled to deal with, often before a worldwide audience. To protect against their attacks or to respond to crisis situations they create, they force governments to expend resources—manpower, money, the attention of senior officials—vastly out of scale with the magnitude of the actual threat they pose.¹     

The counselor's trauma as counseling motivation: vulnerability or stress inoculation?

Should counselors with interpersonal trauma histories work with similarly traumatized clients? How does the work affect them? Current research is inconsistent. This study examines 101 sexual assault and domestic violence counselors' recalled motivations for trauma work, their reported subjective personal changes, and their secondary and vicarious trauma symptoms and burnout. Counselors motivated by interpersonal trauma report both more symptoms and positive changes (including dealing with their own trauma). Those seeking personal meaning report becoming more hypervigilant and self-isolating. Those saying they learned from clients rate symptoms lower, suggesting stress inoculation. Supervisors of trauma counselors should facilitate learning from clients separately from processing the counselor's trauma.     

Accounting for Future Generations: Intergenerational Equity in Australia1

Australian governments have published three intergenerational reports since 2002. In line with a general international trend these reports pointed to a problem said to arise from an ageing population which exposes Australia to the risk of a future major fiscal crisis. In this article we argue that by failing to use a generational accounting framework, the reports privilege the elderly at the expense of young people. Added to this, they fail to engage any discussion of intergenerational equity defined as distributive fairness and justice. In this article we explore the value of various approaches to intergenerational justice, focusing on the Principle of Intergenerational Neutrality derived from Rawls' theory of justice. We argue that this does not work as well from a policy point of view as Sen's freedom‐as‐capabilities approach. We conclude that linking Sen's approach to justice to a generational accounting will enable governments to address future issues of equity.     

International labour standards: Challenging globalization ideology?

The article centres on the role of differential labour standards in the restructuring of the global economy. The denial of labour rights in Asia is a significant factor in the Asian investment boom and in the employment crises in the OECD countries. The first section outlines the Clinton administration's intervention on labour standards in Asia, the strident reaction from Asian governments and from US business interests, and the administration's rapid retreat into ‘constructive engagement’. The second section considers neo‐liberal arguments advanced in favour of nonintervention in the labour sphere since the freeing up of trade and market forces generates economic growth, which in itself improves labour standards. The assumptions underlying this model are critiqued. Finally, alternatives that recognize the significant influence of labour standards on global investment flows are identified. Here it is argued that the emergence of independent unionism in Asia could have a significant effect on the structure of the the global economy in the longer term.     

Is It Finally Time for Space Tourism?

To date, only four paying space tourists have flown, and the prospect for broad, sustainable space tourism remains a dream. This article notes that there are two types of tourists conflated by the advocates of space tourism. The first are a tiny group of adventurers with significant wealth and other resources who seek thrills and bragging rights. They have enjoyed success in using government-owned resources for their extreme tourism experience by flying on Soyuz capsules operated by Russia, and the International Space Station owned and operated by a consortium of nations as a major research station. The second group seeks more modest excursions with a minimum of risk and a smaller price tag. Only the first group has much prospect for tourism in space in the foreseeable future, but the second group is the more important, and expanding its space tourism opportunities represents the primary means of achieving the goal of opening space to the public. This article also differentiates between private sector suborbital space tourism, which may achieve reality within the next five to seven years, and the prospects for orbital space tourism, which are at least an order of magnitude more difficult and will probably require at least another generation of technological work to achieve.     

The Effects of Continuous Application of the TASER X26 Waveform on Sus scrofa,

This study investigated and evaluated the safety margins of the continuous long duration (up to 30 min) effect of the TASER X26 waveform, using a Sus scrofa model. Long duration continuous stimulus has not been evaluated on humans or human surrogates prior to this study. Swine were used as models due to similarities with humans in their skin and cardiovascular systems. Very long duration was used to determine both exposure dose and possible adverse physiological effects of dose. The trial began with an application of 10 min, and subsequent animals received increasing exposure time up to a survived maximum duration of 30 min. At the onset of this work, it was hypothesized that there would be a time limit after which most animals would not survive consistent with increased dose response. However, this hypothesis was not supported by the experimental results. All animals (10 of 10) survived up to 3 min. Seven of the 10 animals survived up to a 10‐min exposure and 3 of 5 animals with a 30‐min target exposure survived the full exposure. Surviving animals were recovered and observed for 24 h, with no postrecovery deaths. This suggests that swine (based on physiology) will not experience a fatal event when exposed to the TASER X26 for a continuous 3 min. Conclusions regarding longer duration (10–30 min) are not as certain due to the small sample sizes at these time intervals.     

Book reviews

Economic relations between China and Latin America have grown rapidly over the past decade. This paper documents the growth of trade, foreign direct investment (fdi) and other financial flows between China and Latin America and identifies the interests of China in the region as a source of raw materials, a market for exports of manufactured goods and an area of diplomatic competition with Taiwan. It points to the asymmetric nature of the relationship in terms of the relative importance of bilateral trade to each partner, the composition of trade flows, and the balance of fdi flows. It shows that these show many of the characteristics of centre–periphery relations. However, China is far from becoming a new hegemonic power in Latin America and the latter's relations with the USA and Europe continue to be more significant than those with China.     

Nationalists without a nation: South Moluccan terrorism in the Netherlands

Abstract

This article focuses on the phenomenon of South Moluccan terrorism in the Netherlands. Beginning with a historical examination of the colonial relationship between the Netherlands and Indonesia, attention is then given to the circumstances in which some 21,000 South Moluccans came to the Netherlands in the early 1950s, and the social, economic, and political conditions of the South Moluccan community in Holland since then. Then follows a detailed examination of the main incidents of South Moluccan terrorism in the Netherlands which climaxed in a series of violent incidents against Dutch and Indonesian targets in the mid‐1970s. Special attention is placed on the ways in which successive Dutch governments have responded to the various outbreaks of terrorism, as well as to the effects of this terrorism on public opinion. The article then shows what effects South Moluccan terrorism has had on the policies of Dutch and Indonesian governments; on national and international public opinion; on the South Moluccans in the Moluccas; and on the international terrorist community. The paper concludes that the focus of South Moluccan terrorism in the Netherlands is likely to shift from attempts to secure an independent homeland for their people to closer contacts with other terrorist groups espousing anti‐colonial, anti‐imperialist, and nationalist ideals.